NDIA Digital Inclusion Recommendations to Federal Government

NDIA calls for the federal government to do the following:

Develop a national Digital Inclusion Corps, as recommended by the National Broadband Plan.

Create and maintain a digital inclusion asset database and map of local and national digital inclusion programs (affordable home access, digital literacy, public access, low-cost devices, and device support).

Create and maintain one website with links to all federal digital inclusion resources.

Establish funding for a national digital inclusion peer to peer network.

Empower and incentivize local and state governments to support digital inclusion by clarifying when Federal funds can be used to support access, training, devices and other inclusion strategies. Example: Financial institutions use of Community Reinvestment Act credit.

Require a “Digital Equity Impact Assessment” by Federal agencies planning new or revamped online services, especially when those are mandatory.

Invest in a new Federal stimulus for broadband adoption (home access, public access, devices, digital literacy training and technology support), building on the experience of the Commerce Department’s BTOP program.

Engage the support of industries like financial services and health care that critically need their lower income customers to go online.

Pursue the recommendations of the Obama Broadband Opportunity Council.

Revise the rules governing the “e-rate” program to allow sharing of capacity at anchor institutions when such sharing does not impact the services provided by the anchors. Example: Using K-12 school broadband access to support neighborhood wi-fi during non-school hours.

The Department of Commerce should find a way to make existing Census tract-level data on household Internet access available to researchers and communities now. It currently is not due to a Census Bureau 2015 decision to eliminate the ACS Three Year Estimates for budgetary reasons.

NDIA specifically calls for the FCC to do the following:

Hold convenings between stakeholders including digital inclusion programs, internet service providers, policymakers and industries that benefit from more customers having home Internet access and digital skills (such as banking and health care).